Search results

This article argues that there are two main barriers preventing imagining and actioning an inclusive, holistic strategy for prostitution reform in the UK. It identifies five key tenets needed to improve the situations for men and women involved in selling sex. Findings from innovative research methods are used to explore how community safety may be improved.

In this chapter we share research findings from our collaborative research project ‘PASAR: Participatory Arts and Social Action in Research’ (http://fass.open.ac.uk/research/projects/pasar), which combines participatory action research methods of participatory theatre and walking methods in order to understand the way in which racialized migrant women challenge their exclusion and subjugation in the context of the UK. The situation of migrant families in the UK is currently characterized by the ‘hostile environment’ policies. This policy ‘is a sprawling web of immigration controls embedded in the heart of our public services and communities. The Government requires employers, landlords, private sector workers, NHS staff and other public servants to check a person's immigration status before they can offer them a job, housing, healthcare or other support’ (Liberty, 2018, p. 5). The currently hegemonic political discourse, views migrants as outsiders to the nation and challenges their right to access welfare. Migrant families are cast as outsiders to citizenship, challenging the social and cultural cohesion of the nation. Indeed, UK immigration policies render it difficult for migrant families to secure their social and economic reproduction. Against this backdrop, the research explores how racialized migrant families develop their subjugated knowledges to claim belonging and participate in the society they live in. In this chapter, we share the key methodological findings, challenges and benefits of working with a PAR approach for co-producing transformatory knowledge with migrant families and advocacy organizations.

In line with the aims of this book, we reflect on the transformatory potential of research and knowledge for the common good through ‘alternative collaborative system of co-researchers and co-learners engaged in dialogue with civil society and social movements’ (Bacal, Introduction p. 1, see also Andersen and Frandsen, this volume).

Measures to tackle anti-social behaviour and nuisance to residents, particularly in urban areas, have been a major focus of UK Government policies over recent years. The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and subsequent legislation such as the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003 introduced stricter powers, particularly through the use of anti-social behaviour orders (ASBOs), as a means of addressing problems in residential neighbourhoods. While there is clearly a need to tackle problem behaviour that impacts seriously on the quality of life of community members, evidence also suggests that behaviour previously tolerated by many is now targeted through enforcement measures, leading to increased polarisation and stigmatisation of some groups (Rowlands, 2005). At the same time, national agendas around Neighbourhood and Civic Renewal¹ aim to minimise conflicts in neighbourhood renewal areas through fostering understanding and building bridges between different groups within diverse communities. There is thus some tension between the different agendas which impacts on how such issues are addressed within localities.

This article considers the likely success of recent reforms of prostitution policy by reflecting on a recent Joseph Rowntree Foundation‐funded study that examined the experiences of those living and working in areas of street sex work. This empirical work points to some of the dangers of policy frameworks and techniques of control that continue to situate sex work as antithetical to the cultivation of community safety.

Purpose – This chapter discusses the belonging of second-generation Finnish Somalis based on a participatory performative research project conducted in Helsinki with young second-generation immigrants.

Methodology/approach – The project involved organizing workshops with teams of art and media professionals and, together with the co-researching participants, staging productions, such as photo and video exhibitions and producing books and documentaries; these artworks, in turn, formed an important part of the research reporting. In these productions, the search for multiple homes and belonging formed a narrative that was expressed in both the audio-visual materials and the written stories.

Findings – The performative approaches and audio-visual methods employed in the study assisted the participants in dealing with questions of belonging and othering by emphasizing the strength and multifacetedness offered by outsider positions. In the ‘potential spaces’ created in the project setting, memories and experiences could be expressed in symbolic form, discussed and rearticulated. This, in turn, made possible the negotiation of a form of cultural citizenship that combined different homes, nations and senses of belonging.

Social implications – By claiming a cultural citizenship in their productions, the young participants were able to create multiple narrations for themselves and Finnishness, which also supported their resilience. By creating works of art with the young people, we other participants were able to observe our own participation and research from a critical perspective.

Originality/value of the chapter – The chapter demonstrates how varied perspectives and different epistemological understandings can be recognized and shared with an audience in a performative research setting.

The purpose of this paper is to explore why the use of a particular qualitative method, walking, failed in a given context, the Chile of contemporary unrest.

The paper explores walking methodologies from a critical cultural perspective.

The article argues that context as socio-material entanglement, or people's relation to place, in a volatile situation, requires strong participatory engagement to enable productive outcomes and also that one can learn from the failure to generate such engagement.

The article suggests that enhanced participant involvement in experimental design (here a walking event) is necessary when the situation on the ground is conflict-ridden. It also suggests that explicitly articulating one's outsider position may facilitate productive exchanges in volatile contexts. The article further suggests that failure of method is a neglected but useful topic in qualitative research.

Although walking methodologies frequently claim to be participant-centered, they are not always organized in that manner. If they are not, they risk undermining the democratic potential of alt-meths that is of particular importance in volatile contexts.

Failure of method is rarely reported on. The paper addresses that knowledge gap.